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Although North Africa was influenced to a certain extent by European Bronze Age cultures (for example, traces of the Bell beaker tradition are found in Morocco), it has long been believed that Africa did not have its own metallurgy traditions until the Phoenician colonization (ca. 1100 BC) of North Africa, and that it remained attached to the Neolithic way of life. The civilization of Ancient Egypt, whose influence did not extensively cover Africa outside of the Nile's reach, was believed to be the sole exception to this rule as regards the whole range of ancient cultures of Africa. Recently, however, some discoveries have been made that appear to contradict these views. In the Termit region of eastern Niger, its ancient inhabitants are now thought to have become the first iron smelting people in West Africa and among the first in the world at around 1500 BC. Iron and copper working then continued to spread southward to Nigeria, and then moved elsewhere in the continent, reaching South Africa around AD 200. The widespread use of iron revolutionized the Bantu-speaking farming communities who adopted it, driving out and absorbing the rock tool using hunter-gatherer societies they encountered as they expanded to farm wider areas of savannah. The technologically superior Bantu-speakers spread across southern Africa and became wealthy and powerful, producing iron for tools and weapons in large, industrial quantities. |
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